Sovereign Bank last week named Rhode Islander Steven J. Issa market CEO for a newly formed New England South region in a change in the hierarchy of the bank’s Northeast markets that he said should have little effect on customers.
“It’s just a reporting change,” Issa said in an interview last week. “The same leadership is still in place.”
As market CEO for the New England South region, Issa will oversee the bank’s business strategy and activities in Rhode Island, Connecticut, western Massachusetts, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
Issa previously had served as market CEO for Rhode Island and also led Sovereign’s precious-metals unit, which serves clients throughout the Northeast, and oversaw the bank’s asset-based and specialized lending groups for Rhode Island. He will continue to supervise those units.
Kevin Flaherty and Bill Hourihan will join Issa’s management team. Flaherty will continue to manage the daily banking activities for Sovereign as market president for Connecticut and western Massachusetts. Hourihan will continue to manage the bank’s activities as market CEO for Nantucket Bank and Bank of Martha’s Vineyard.
Sovereign spokeswoman Ellen Molle said the bank is maintaining the five markets it created in the New England region in 2004, but it is adding two overarching markets, New England South and New England North.
While Issa is overseeing the southern region, Patrick J. Sullivan has been named market CEO for New England North, supervising the eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire markets.
Issa said the changes will make communication among bank officials between markets more efficient. “Now they can communicate without having a formal meeting,” he said. “They can discuss any issues that need to be resolved.”
The new alignment has already been helpful, Issa said. When bank officials from Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket recently complained that tourist traffic at those branches was creating longer waiting times for customers, Rhode Island officials offered a solution they had developed to a similar problem: Give customers clipboards so they can fill out any necessary paperwork while waiting.
The move has cut waiting times by two-thirds.
The new alignment “will be very seamless to the customer, but the customer will benefit from what we’re doing,” Issa said.
Issa, who has 30 years of banking experience, joined Sovereign in 1998, serving as regional president and managing director for the Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts commercial banking group. He previously had held executive positions at FleetBoston Financial and Shawmut Bank. He began his career at the former Old Stone Bank in Providence in 1977.
A resident of Cumberland, Issa has an MBA from Bryant University. He serves on the boards of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Rhode Island and the Business Development Company of Rhode Island, and is a member of the Governor’s Commodore Advisory Committee.
